altschmerz
by Ink Reservoir
Summary: Sometimes, when Sasuke can't sleep, he wonders if things could've been different between him and Naruto.


Impossible things shouldn't be dwelt on, but sometimes it's impossible not to dwell. And dwell Sasuke does, but very sparingly and only in secret, arm bent behind the head staring up at the ceiling when he can't sleep casual sort of dwelling, like it's just something for the mind to wander to on occasion and not something obstructing his way to the kind of peace he needs to fall asleep. It's a dwelling on difference, on what-could-have-beens instead of what-ises, but the truth of the matter is that it couldn't have been and not really through any one person's fault.

The memories are difficult to revisit, but of course, Sasuke's not really revisiting them at all, a visit would imply that he actually wants to go through them but that isn't true. It's more like a kidnapping than anything else, and it's easy to envision that because the starring role of those memories was definitely not opposed to forcing him places that he didn't want to be. Yes, memories—not of his brother or of his family (tonight isn't the night to get hung up on why his brother doesn't seem to count with the rest of his family)—but of the afterward, of the noticings that never occurred before he was alone because there just wasn't a reason to notice. And, avoid it as he'd managed so far, the chief subject of those noticings—of course, was Naruto Uzumaki. Always the centre of attention, whether that was what attention wanted or not.

Honestly, for a while, it _was._ Sasuke is just too old now to bother anymore with denial—what does it matter? It's ineffectual, buried feelings and thoughts that had no bearing anymore on the present. He'd even admitted it out loud before—back then, when he was alone, he'd known that he wasn't the only one going through isolation—of course he'd noticed Naruto then. Before his family was gone, Naruto was just loud; after, they had something in common. The balance between the desire to never get close to anyone again for fear of betrayal and wanting to have just one person to talk to who'd understand him barely existed. Sasuke doubts that even if he had made an effort to befriend Naruto back then that it would have worked, what with the way Naruto hated him at the time. The blond explained it away years later as jealousy, but it still makes Sasuke's stomach sink when he thinks about it—they were just children with no reason to speak, it wasn't like it was easy to ignore Naruto but it was relatively easy to avoid him. Even when Naruto was pointing and shouting at him there were windows to look out of and choruses of shrill voices to (attempt to) drown him out. Also, there was schoolwork—things to read, places to put his attention that didn't involve Naruto at all. Trying to recreate that dynamic, to put himself back into a position where Naruto could be safely ignored, after his placement on Team Seven had led quickly to ridicule by Kakashi and proven ineffective—he was no longer avoidable.

And maybe that would've been fine. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. But no, of course it had to matter. Sasuke wasn't blind, could see the way Naruto vied for his attention before they even graduated, and his attempts to brush it off were rewarded with a vengeance once they had to start seeing one another and working together regularly. Insult after insult in some kind of barrage— Sasuke caught on, of course, learned to turn it into a game, for every time he was called a bastard he'd return it by calling Naruto a loser, eventually he was good enough to spout the harsh words first instead of only in retaliation. It was easy, sometimes fun, if a little tiring to keep up with. Naruto's jealousy wasn't exactly subtle. Maybe it was an unconventional basis for a friendship, but Sasuke wouldn't know much about that anyway, so who could tell. Might Gai and Kakashi's friendship was built on rivalry, too. Honestly, apart from Chouji and Shikamaru, most of the people Sasuke knew's friendships were.

Maybe it was Naruto's persistence, or maybe it was the attention, or maybe it was the entire atmosphere of their team—Sasuke wasn't a talker, but Naruto and Sakura had enough words to fill the air with and he got used to them—enough so that long breaks between missions and training left him wondering about them, about what they were doing. Enough so that he'd worry about their health, his initial utilitarian concerns about Naruto wreaking havoc on his body with a ramen-exclusive diet turning into genuine worry. Training sessions weren't just allotted times for self-improvement but an opportunity to be with his teammates. Naruto, who'd always ruin their productivity by wasting time and getting competitive for no reason, by trying to pin blame on Sasuke for his own mistakes—maybe it wasn't about their actual dynamic so much as the fact they _had_ a dynamic. Sasuke knew what to expect of Naruto, everyone else called him unpredictable but his belligerence itself was predictable. There was a specific way that they talked to each other, a particular vocabulary to their arguments that was rarely added to and often recycled, a certain habit that formed in having to look out for Naruto's mistakes as well as his own because they were inevitable and being prepared to tell Naruto exactly why they were, in fact, _his_ mistakes, and not Sasuke's. It was effort, and then it was nature, and then it was so integral to Sasuke's day-to-day life that it became impossible to imagine things without it. Or… maybe it wasn't. In those times, it never really occurred to Sasuke to try. He got used to staying up on nights like this one and to dwell—imaginings of a future where this didn't have to go away. He never saw himself as an adult in his visions, couldn't or maybe didn't want to see that far ahead. Instead, it was more like a mental freezing—that they could live like this forever, in this specific bubble of time, stuck at thirteen years old in a perpetual state of annoyance/affection, this dynamic that would never change, not to grow or to wilt. Not even when he forced himself to bite back smiles at the sound of Naruto's stupidly raucous laughter. Not even when he could feel his pulse quicken in his throat when he pulled Naruto's arm over him to help him walk after a rigorous night of training. Not even when he caught himself wondering if maybe the time Naruto's lips crashed into his by mistake would've been less horrendous had the idiot actually brushed his teeth so not to taste like ramen and if it'd been gentler so their teeth didn't have to collide painfully and make Sasuke's lip bleed— if maybe it could've even been a bit nice. Sometimes it was impossible not to dwell on the impossible, but he wouldn't allow it. No, his fantasies kept him in that realm of only wondering. To try to picture any sort of future would just ruin the fragile present he was growing attached to. Of course, it self-destructed even without his involvement eventually. Maybe it was inevitable that it would.

That was when the arguments became fights— since he met Orochimaru in the forest for the first time, terrified to death and with no idea who he was. It's almost funny in hindsight, to think how Sasuke'd eventually kill him with total confidence in his ability to do so and a contempt disgust taking the place of fear—but it's not that funny, considering how now the vile creature is still at large, whether Naruto wants to think Orochimaru is under his thumb or not. Sasuke had wanted to run away, which disappointed Sakura and Naruto, and they'd had an argument over it—it was nothing Naruto was capable of understanding, he didn't know anything about Sasuke at that point, but Sasuke can still clearly distinguish it in his mind. It was the first time his relationship with his team was truly threatened, the first time Naruto was genuinely furious with him, before passing out it felt like they were on completely different wavelengths but even with all of Sasuke's indignant anger he still felt the blood in his mouth and it tasted like _fear_ —for his life, for Naruto and Sakura's lives, and for the fact that if they died now their last opinion of him would be that he's a coward. It _hurt_ , and their subsequent fights in the months before Sasuke left hardly hurt less. It was like he and Naruto were speaking different languages—sometimes, it felt like Naruto might have had a point, if he only knew.

Yes, if he only…

And maybe that's the source of it—of the discontent. Naruto didn't know, Sasuke didn't tell him, maybe in part out of selfishness but at least a little bit because that isolated life he'd dreamed about could still exist without him and it wasn't his to poison. To sever those bonds… it was hard enough to do that his Sharingan was still affected enough to make it worth it that he didn't go all the way with killing Naruto—it was in that battle only that he dared to utter it, that word, _friend._ He remembers Naruto's face when he said it. He remembers the subsequent torrent of questions. He remembers being questioned for his authenticity, remembers being told that what Sasuke said about their relationship couldn't be true because then he wouldn't be doing this, remembers thinking of how utterly wrong Naruto was, that outside the frozen, stalled ungrowth of the walls of the Village and the loudness of Naruto's voice in laughter and in rage that this was the only thing Sasuke _could_ do as a friend. That this was the only thing he was good for. That this was the only place those questions, those maybes and almosts and could-have-beens could possibly end up—severed. Dead. Like everything else was and had to be. It wasn't _Naruto's_ fault—he was innocent. Unknowing. A victim of Sasuke's affection, because if Sasuke never started to care despite himself then Naruto wouldn't have been hurt or caught in the midst of any of it at all.

The thought still makes Sasuke tense, and he pulls the blanket a bit higher to his throat, no longer in a position of casual relaxation. He can't sleep.

Naruto wasn't clueless forever. They met again, more than once, in the time since Sasuke'd known him Naruto had expanded in influence, so much so that approaching the Kage Summit Sasuke had caught some of it in the whispers. That Naruto could convince anybody. Obito wasn't the one who told Sasuke how the official leader of the Akatsuki had failed. He pieced it together from gossip. By then, Sasuke knew too much—more than he was ever intended to know. Well, by his brother and the Village, at least. He knew then just as much as Obito intended him to know—he wasn't stupid. It did occur to him that the Akatsuki was trying to use him even though he refused it. And he hasn't forgotten that meeting with Naruto. When Naruto tried again to reach out to him, when Naruto kept inanely repeating that word—the one Sasuke had been stupid enough to introduce him to— _friend_. It was too late and they both knew it. They both…

He just wanted Naruto to leave him alone. Wanted Naruto to let him destroy and be destroyed—it didn't happen. _I know_ , Naruto had said to him. _I know what happened._ Sasuke believed him, wasn't even slightly curious to learn how Naruto found out—even now, it hardly matters, does it? He doesn't doubt Obito could and would have told him. The important thing was that Naruto knew—and he said, _I can't let you destroy the Leaf._ And so he'd rather die, to die together, with Sasuke.

He can taste the blood again, like it's fresh, like it didn't happen over ten years ago. He can remember the apathy, the misdirected fury—it didn't surprise him that Naruto knew and that he thought Sasuke was wrong. Didn't surprise him that not a single person in the Leaf Village dared to challenge his perception, that they'd all justify the deaths of the Uchiha because in the long run it worked out nicely for them. He was only furious that Naruto thought he'd be that easy to take down when Sasuke had set a goal. So far at the time, any failure of Sasuke's was only ever temporary. He'd grown accustomed to getting what he wanted. At the time, Naruto's opposition to him had been frustrating. Had been infuriating, even. The casual swinging around of the word _friend_ when Sasuke didn't want it to mean anything—perhaps the most rage-inducing thing about it was that it still _did_ mean something and that trying to use it to explain a broken relationship made Sasuke's foolish attachment to Naruto when they were young seem poisoned too, as if even in his attempt to break it off he couldn't stop himself from ruining a thing that was good in the temporariness of its existence. It was aggravating, but it was not a surprise. He didn't understand it, but it was not a surprise. With weariness he knew that unless he changed his own mentality about what the Leaf had done to his family (and he wouldn't) that Naruto would not go down without a fight. Without the spillage of blood that he tried to save once, when things were still somewhat simple.

What would have been surprising—what would have truly shaken and thrown Sasuke off his guard—would've been affirmation. Not necessarily of his actions, but of his beliefs. If Naruto—the newly titled so-called Hero of the Leaf Village had said, "You're right." Had said, "I understand. The Leaf Village was wrong to butcher your clan. The Leaf Village was wrong to spill your family's blood. The Leaf Village was wrong to leave you straggling and alone to fulfill a destiny discussed behind closed doors in some high tower office."

 _You don't understand,_ Sasuke told him, and it was true. Whatever Sasuke feels about his own actions now, he knows that Naruto didn't understand that past iteration of himself. Because even after he _knew_ , he still stood for the Leaf. Would still die for the Leaf _and_ everything it had done. Wouldn't once stand and say that they were wrong.

… Sasuke wonders if he could have. He wonders if it might've made a difference. At the time, Sasuke wasn't interested in listening to anyone—well, wasn't he? He doesn't know. There wasn't anyone trying to challenge the way he thought. Those who disagreed with him only reaffirmed what he already believed in the fact of their disagreement, in their content with the Leaf. And those who stood by him propelled it further.

No one ever asked Sasuke why he wanted to take down the entire Leaf Village. He didn't give Taka the opportunity to do that and allowed them to believe it was only the Council that was directly accountable who he wanted to take action against—but even when he became candid about it in front of his former team later, they were only appalled by him. Shocked in a state of disbelief. He doesn't blame Sakura and Kakashi—he didn't tell them why he wanted the Leaf destroyed. But Naruto _knew_. He knew, and he still said, "Things can go back to the way they used to be" (They couldn't.), he knew, and he still said, "I can't let you destroy the Leaf." He said, you're too far gone. He said, you will die and I will die with you.

What if instead he'd shaken him, taken him by surprise, Sasuke wouldn't have listened, but still. What if after Itachi's second death, if after his discussion with the revived Hokage, he'd returned to fight at the side of the Leaf and found that they all knew the truth? That Naruto had spread what he knew of Sasuke's clan to everyone? That the people of the Leaf Village _understood_ his actions—that when he announced his desire to become the Hokage and to _change_ things that instead of reacting with shock they reacted with knowledge? If they couldn't accept him as a leader then at the very least they could understand that _change_ was necessary, that just because the newest immediate threat to their safety was to disappear it wouldn't mean that the best option is to return to the status quo.

Sasuke knows how the people of the Leaf would react if they were to find out the truth. That was the entire reason he and the others had agreed not to tell anyone—it could cause a civil war, or at the very least a civil disturbance. It would break people's trust. This… this alternative, where everything is as it once was but with more advanced technology, where Naruto always asks him why he doesn't spend more time in the Village because Sasuke really doesn't need to make sure he's _constantly_ on a mission, because Naruto doesn't see that no one else in this Village except for him and Sakura even want him here. Well… and Sarada, but that's less because of who he is and more because she doesn't know his history and would want any other father as well if they were this distant. It's not like he cares about what others think of him, but he still can't help but wonder at that other life, that could-have-been, that maybe if they knew they'd hate him a little bit less, wish he were dead a little bit less. That maybe it never would have escalated to that point back then, when the war was still happening, where he had to be told explicitly how collared he was to a destiny of giving up or repeating a cycle in which he's always the evil one. In which he's always wrong. If maybe there could've been a new plan. One where actual structural change could be made, where his idea that the system needed to be rebuilt from its very foundation wouldn't be a threat but a contribution to something bigger. Where his mistake wasn't wishing for change but thinking that he had to do it alone. Where returning and fighting at the side of the Leaf of his own volition _meant_ something because the Leaf also wanted to fight at _his_ side against the corruption that led to this deep pain and loneliness that stayed with him his entire life. This deep pain and loneliness that hasn't gone away even now, even more than a decade later, looking up at a ceiling that's just there to remind him the sky of this world isn't for him. To remind him of his limits, of this destiny that he must fulfill, of this person that he has to be.

He wonders how he would've felt if Naruto had stopped trying to force Sasuke to be his friend while simultaneously denying everything that Sasuke stood for. If instead of just talking about making changes he'd started to actually _do_ it, and not with the goal of winning Sasuke over but with the intention of doing what's _right_ , just because it's right, just because that's all that matters. No… threatening to kill Sasuke and no threatening to die.

Sasuke wonders how it might've been different. To not have gotten yelled at when he told Naruto, "I lost", because he wouldn't have said he lost at all. Because…

He shifts, rolls over onto his side.

Because what he wants would have mattered. Because being part of a solution wouldn't just mean being a pawn in somebody else's solution—honestly, not even that, he's more like a side role in somebody else's life, this status quo life he once would have destroyed the whole world to change. And then maybe that friendship with Naruto, that first friendship that had led to all of this, that had been the determining factor leading him to this destiny and to this inconsequential life—maybe it wouldn't have been a mistake. Maybe they could've reignited it, _truly_ reignited it, with all the force of passion that Sasuke once had instead of a drying river with occasional references to a past where they actually cared about each other in some desperate attempt to make it seem like all of Naruto's hard work to bring them back to this point was actually _worth_ it—

But Sasuke knows that it never would have happened. He knows how whole-heartedly Naruto believes in the Leaf. He knows how stubborn and unrelenting Naruto is. He knows that Naruto isn't much the listener or the type to live and let live. He knows that Naruto would never have let Sasuke return of his own volition, would never forsake the word "friend" until Sasuke is ready to reclaim it again, would never truly change his entire approach to the world—not when he can be the hero he always wanted to be, not when he can be _Hokage_ , not when changing his stance would, in his mind, mean losing in the rivalry Naruto decided they had when they were children. The rivalry Naruto _still_ insists they have even after everything, like Kakashi and Might Gai, like so many of the people they know and knew. This rivalry he won't let end, not even when Sasuke says, "I lost." Rehashing the same insults they used against each other as children, when back then Sasuke's personal favorite memories were the ones where they weren't insulting each other. The ones where he felt his heartbeat quicken. He knows inside that none of these thoughts that keep him up at night, these so-called "what if"s could ever have been possible, not without changing Naruto in some fundamental way. He doesn't feel the same anymore now as he did back then.

But… if it _were_ possible, maybe he could have. Maybe he _would_ have. And maybe they would have been happy.

 **A/N:** So… I really hate SNS, mainly because I feel like Naruto is the only one who benefits from it and I like Sasuke too much to enjoy that dynamic, but I've always been a pretty firm believer that before leaving the Village, Sasuke had a very strong attachment to Naruto, whether you want to take that attachment as a crush or not (I do—I'd also argue that Sasuke's attachment to Naruto before leaving the Village was stronger than Naruto's attachment to him). A friend of mine who does like SNS asked me once what my "ideal" form of SNS would be—in other words, under what circumstances it'd be possible for me to actually like it. And that's how this got written. So basically… I don't think I could enjoy this ship without fundamentally changing who Naruto is, and that's why I don't ship it. But, if I _could_ fundamentally change him, the situation proposed here would be the most ideal to me. Thanks for reading, reviews are always appreciated!


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